Tag Archives: Imperial Mae Ping Hotel

AirAsia Bloggers Trip: Adventure of Chiang Mai (Part 2)

August 21, 2012 – 11:08 am

Selamat Hari Raya to all!!!!! Sadly, public holiday is finished, although, I have no holiday. 🙁 sad case. Anyway, hopefully my latest post will cheer you up a bit. Oh, for those who asked about contact and info on Chiang Mai. I already replied on your comments 🙂

The following trip is sponsored by AirAsia. A big thanks for them.

… Continue from Part 1 (Read this first if you haven’t)

Our hotel entrance. Unloading the victim goods.

Miaozilla!!! We need UltraHamsters

My room with two big beds 😀

I’m sharing my room with another blogger.

Coincidentally, Kenny from Oguitou happened to be my senior from my major. We studied the same course in the same university and ended up not doing what we studied and go for our passion. XD

He’s a Musician, Vocalist, Keyboardist, Organizer and also a Photographer. Awesomeee pawsome. I think this is my first person I know in mainstream music industry.

After some chit chat, we went down to the lobby met up with Jess (the Elephant) and went for some walk around the hotel. This is the Chang Klan Road which located only 15 minutes walk from our hotel. Every night, this place will turned into night market with many hawker stalls selling souvenirs and shirts.

Woohooo McD in Thailand, a must visit place. Whenever I’m in oversea, I will visit McD or KFC to check out the different meals they have there.

If not mistaken, the stalls open around 6pm. So there’s nothing much to see at that hour.

Bought a Chendol/Caluk Ice cream. Very milky! If only there’s more chendol and red bean in it 😛

We went back soon after that to meet up with the rest and head over to…

Uh hum! We’re taking a cruise. River cruise XD

It supposed to be a River Cruise Dinner but the tour guide said the dinner very tourist. So we ditched the idea and went just for ride. So how about the ride? Well..

A group shot of us.

You can say it’s relax or boring as there wasn’t anything much to see. There’s weren’t any landmarks beside some buildings and hotels.

So ended up chating with Jess, another awesome blogger who happened to be a freelance designer who does a lot of magazine covers, a photographer and also a hardcore traveler, and I heard she’s going for some charity traveling soon. Woahh…

The boat stops at this little place called the herbs and spices house or something. It’s basically just a place setup to look like a small village with lots of plants and some stocks like duck, chicken, rabbits and also a…

This pig is enormous!! I bet it weights at least 150kg or more. @@ There are two of them sleeping and snoring. The place kinda run down and there’s nothing much to do there. We were served with some drinks and fruits there before heading back.

So, how about the river cruise? Honestly, if you happened to visit Chiang Mai, you can just skip it and save your money and time for other activities. Other activities like eating. 😛

Our awesome tour guide brought us to this restaurant called Banrai YarmYen after the river cruise. It’s a famous local restaurant. The place was pretty crowded with locals and we happened to be the only tourist that night again.

Quite a nice environment to be with live music, dimly lights, pretty waitress, pretty waitress, and the great food!! Uh hum! Great food! Check out what we had!

Mixed Vege with Prawns: No comment as me no likey vege. XD

Tom Yum Gong: Perfect balance between sour and spicy and without shadowing the taste of the fresh ingredients.

Tom Kha Kai: This is good! I like this very much. When you first sip it, there’s this coconut sweetness and flavor to it. Don’t be fool by it’s milky appearance, as a minute after it goes down your throat, the spiciness kicks in and you feel your throat is hot. Normally, spiciness usually kicks in and numbs you at the lips and tongue area and sometimes making you hard to taste anything else. But this kicks in at the back of your throat, so it won’t be much a hindrance. And it even makes you to stuff even more food in the throat. XD

Oh there’s another dish which is…

Uh hum!! We had Ant Egg Soup! See the white bean alike thingy? Well, that’s the Ant’s Egg. Everyone actually went and tasted all the dishes before asking what they were and ended up very shock when tour guide told them, it is Ant’s Egg.

There’s one crazy fat fella tho who is very excited instead…

Uh hum, I had a lot of proteins XD

What does it taste like? I don’t know cause it was overwhelming by the soup. The soup is spicy with a little of sweetness in it. I not sure the sweetness is from the Ant egg or not but I once watch a food programs before and mentioned that ant’s egg is sweet. About the texture, it’s like empty capsule shell.

This happens when you don’t know Thai and have tour guide to order for you. And it seems like it wasn’t our first weird dish.

Yes we did!! And we didn’t know!!

Remember this picture from my first post? Well, the first dish on the left is Pig’s Brain!! No wonder it’s a little weird. We didn’t realized as our tour guide only say it’s pork. @@ I heard that pig’s brain supposed to be tofu alike but apparently it’s not.

We turned to Kenny (turtle) as he ate the most, 90% of the dish..

and still okay with it. LOL.

Oh, they said eating pig’s brain will makes you more clever. It is said to help to rejuvenate the brain. I don’t know but I know pig is not a stupid animal like how mainstream media and majority think it is. If you read up, they are actually one of smartest animals.

Get back to our food. I don’t usually do this but we had…

Thailand beers for dinner. It’s my first drinking beer over a dinner. So how’s Thailand’s beer? Smooth and less gassy but still me no like beer.

After the dinner, we went for the famous Thai Durian.

And we don’t like it!!!! Malaysia Durians are better. The durian is expensive, tasteless and hard.

Can even play table tennis with it. Maybe they wanna suit to westerner’s taste?

We headed back to our hotel after that. Remember the ChangKlan street in the day? Well, this is how it looks like at night. The whole 1km street is filled with stalls with most of them selling shirts, accessories and paintings.

A shot from one of the end of the street.

As I was too full from the dinner, I did not visit the McD to test the Samurai Burger we do not have in Malaysia but visited 7-11 and got myself a pack of local flavored chips.

Not bad not bad. Why our local Malaysia comes out with some special flavor chips instead of boring, Spicy, BBQ, Onion rings, Yawnn..

Anyway, that ends my first day in Chiang Mai. A rather relaxing day and the real adventure starts tomorrow. Do stay tune 🙂

Thanks again to AirAsia for the trip!

Siniawan, the Vintage Town in Kuching

Holding Hands

Hatyai Finale

Tags Air Asia, Ant's Egg soup, Baanrai Yarmyen Restaurant, ChangKlan Night market, chiang mai, Chiang Mai Night Market, comic, Herbs and Spices House, Imperial Mae Ping Hotel, Lay's Potato Chips, Mae Ping River Cruise, miao, Thai Chang Export Beer, Tom Kha Kai, Tom Yum Gong, travel, wafupafu | Permalink | Comments (17)

Thailand Trip

AirAsia Bloggers: Adventure of Chiang Mai (Part 1)

August 16, 2012 – 9:56 am

Warning: Heavy images! Long Post! Many Food Photos including non halal food!!

Some photos are in different format as they are taken by different people and different devices.

The following trip is sponsored by Air Asia.

LOL seems like the rest also didn’t sleep or sleep a little like me. XD

Everyone is super excited and can see this sparkling smile under the eye bags.

except our nanny from Air Asia..

A shot of some of the bloggers coz I’m not in it. XD

Well, you didn’t see any cat, then there’s no me. 😀

A cup of warm Milo to keep myself awake and energized before boarding the plane.

Oh, Air Asia has direct flight from KL LCCT to Chiang Mai daily, you might wanna check it out.

later that

hehehe.. Forgot there’s a time difference. We’re 1 hour faster than Thailand.

Anyway, it was a good timing for our breakfast. It was already arranged by Air Asia.

So we just sit back and enjoy. XD

First time having Air Asia Nasi Lemak, usually I order Briyani but I must say the Nasi Lemak is awesome! No wonder, my friend orders that every time =.= and never tells.

Anyway, it wasn’t long and we arrived at the Chiang Mai airport. Sometimes I find Malaysian very funny, we seldom listen to laws when we’re in Malaysia but when we’re at oversea, we all become very obedient people. XD

You know when you at the immigration check point, there’s a line where u need to stand behind so you won’t be too close to the counter. Well…

that happens. XD

I guessed sometimes we just afraid we might done something wrong and denied entry or have this weird guilty feeling and afraid of get caught. hahaha.. Then again, we have anything to hide.

okay, i admit I smuggled a angel hamster and a devil hamster. 😐

Our awesome tour guide, later will let you know why. 😀

First thing to do when in a foreign country!

Get a Sim card!! Get connected! 😛

Before we checked in to our hotels, our tour guide decided to bring us to the Arts and Cultural Centre which located right in the middle of the city centre. The centre features the history, cultures and all backgrounds of Chiang Mai City.

Upon entry the centre, you will saw these three statues in front of the centre. They are the three Kings that founded Chiang Mai in the old days. I heard actually there’s 4 kings, the last one was kinda short, fat and orange in colour, so they didn’t feature him. 😛

oh, hail to me. XD I iz king

Everyone still trying to connect to the internet. XD

The centre is very big and very detail covering a wide range of topics on Chiang Mai.

They used a lot of these miniature replicas to tell the history and stories.

There’s real life size replicas too.

I suspect the aircon broke down or something as it was kinda hot at the Centre and couldn’t really concentrate reading and stay at a spot too long. I think will spend more than an hour just to read all the stuffs, the place is huge.

Another thing is we still can’t connect to the internet. T__T The Thai language messages are not helping at all. =.= Then a good Samaritan in our group decided to share his roaming broadband.

hahhah I’m going to hell for this. (joking bout his head)

The moment he share his line, everyone started surrounding him. XD

It’s a very funny scene where everyone just follows him around.

We all followed him back when he noticed he left his hat in the Cultural Centre’s cafeteria. XD

Everyone piled together just to have the awesomeness of internet. XD

Our nanny couldn’t stand looking at our sufferings and went to a nearby shop to get us new Sim Cards. So a tip here for those who wanna visit Thai, either you get a Thai friend to help you or you have the Thai seller get you online at the spot.

While waiting for our phone getting setup, we chilled out at the coffee shop next door and turned out they serve awesome Beef Noodle, Pork Noodle and also Fish Ball Noodle. If not mistaken each bowl is only 20 or 30 baths.

Beef Noodle

Fish Ball Noodle.

If you happen to be at the Art and Cultural Center, do check out this coffee shop at the right side of the centre. You can notice the cook wears a white chef hat and it’s beside an ice cream cafe.

Our tour guide was awesome, he said he will bring us to “non-tourist place” to have our meals and a famous one among locals. It was only 10 minutes walk away from where we were and so we walked.

The great thing about a “non tourist eatery” is that the food is cheaper and more original. Only problems are only locals know the place and usually the people at those places do not speak English. Luckily, we had our tour guide to order for us.

We’re the only non Thais at that shop. XD

Our main dishes, Spciy Noodle and Curry Chicken Noodle are good and the Chicken Soup was a surprise to our taste bud, it’s sooo good. I can finish a few bowl of rice with this chicken soup.

Then again, I can’t since there’s other dishes waiting for my tummy. XD

Not sure it’s otak otak or not but looks like one and I prefer our Malaysia otak otak more. 😛 Next, deep fried pork and pork sausage. Both are awesome. We even ordered another plate for both dishes.

Sorry, Pork again. ^^” All three are awesome and goes very well with rice. I like the pork with Thai spices, I like the taste of the spices.

Do you know they called pork as moo in Thai? It’s rather confusing as moo is the sound made by a cow. =.= So be careful when you ask someone “What meat is that?” and the person answer you “Moo”.

Another must try is this mango juice. It’s awesome. At first, I thought it was just normal mango juice. I took a sip and it is really good, very fresh and smoothing. Someone should either import or make something awesome like this. And yes, the two bottles in the picture are mine. XD Bwahahah

You should check out this shop when you’re in Chiang Mai. It’s called Huen Penh and located at 112, Ratchamanka Road. Unfortunately, it appears to be non halal eatery but do not worry as Chiang Mai has a lot of halal eateries. Just ask your tour guide to bring to good, very local, no tourist place to eat.